Trigger warning: mentions of attempted suicide
My attention span had never been the best, partly because of my ADH—something, and partly because of my AD—whatever it was called. For this reason, I had learned early on that always using the same code combination for my lockers, bedrooms, and apartments was the safest approach to avoid being locked out at two am in the morning. Especially while being drunk and wearing nothing but a sock (don't ask) in which I had shoved a rubber duck…(nope…no questions are going to be answered… ever! Pretend you never even read this.)
Upon entering my usual 7777777 number combination, the door to the strange but not-so-strange apartment sprung open and a cloud of mouldy air wafted my way. Up until this point, I hadn't even known that air could do that.
I suppose I never cleaned my dishes or laundered my clothes or bathroom towels while living here. Or any other housework for this matter. The path to the living room was covered in dust and empty bottles—so many empty bottles—that it was hard to make out the colour of the carpet. If there even was any carpet. I wasn't quite that sure at this point. For health and safety purposes, I decided not to remove my shoes as I tried to fight my way into the kitchen.
I either cleared out some of my rubbish at one point, or had eaten very sparsely during the time I spent in this place. The number of empty takeaway boxes was rather little compared to the amount of general rubbish and empty coffee mugs everywhere. I squinted my eyes, wondering where they came from. I didn't even like coffee.
But just then, a memory crept back into my head…there had been a time when I tried going cold turkey and not shooting up (unless it was a weekend and I was drunk anyway), and during these days, I consumed an average of fifteen to twenty espressos a day, just to calm my nerves.
I guess, this also explained why, accordingly to my doctors, I had suffered a heart attack in July and was now on strict orders to never consume any caffeine in my life again. At the time of diagnosis, I was genuinely baffled, and so had been my brother. We both assumed that if anyone was prone to a caffeine-induced heart attack before hitting the age of forty, it would be him. I mean…the dude would wake up at 2am just to have a shot of coffee—in order to be able to fall asleep again.
But no. My heart was the one damaged to no repair—and wasn't that just a beautiful metaphor to describe my entire life?
Theoretically, the doctors had said the same about my liver and alcohol, my stomach and gluten, and opium in general, but I needed to start slowly. One thing after the other. Although I've been a good boy who hadn't had a drink or shot up in forever, I must admit I got very close to doing so the other day. It was only thanks to Min fucking Yoongi that I avoided doing anything silly.
As if on autopilot, my hands moved to the pockets of my coat. The stolen whiskey was still in there, but at the moment I felt no temptation to reach for it and have a sip. Probably, because right now, I was standing in the aftermath of the worst time of my life and was utterly appalled at my past behaviour.
But gluten? Come on! You can't tell me I'm not supposed to have pizzas, burgers, or doughnuts? It may be good for my stomach, but it surely won't be good for my overall mental health.
I opened some random kitchen cupboards, only to find all of them empty. Dust bunnies greeted me from every drawer and shelf, some of which looked like little muppet show monsters. I clearly hadn't spent much time in this room. I threw another glance into the fridge but regretted this immediately. I seemed to have brought about twenty cartoons of milk, all of which had gone off before the turn of the year. I shoved my face mask back over my nose. That concealed some of the smell.
As I walked into the unmade bedroom, some stray memories were ready for an attack. I sat down on the mattress on the floor. I never got around to buying a proper frame. In the corner of the room was a little dog bed, the only thing in this rundown mess I seemed to have looked after.
I could picture a little black and brown tea-cup-sized Pomeranian sleeping in there, and something in me jolted. "What happened to you?" I asked into the empty room, but of course, no one answered. Or rather no one but Putin's cheerful voice inquired whether I was really ready to travel down memory lane.
"I'm not sure…but I need to know what happened to the little dog." Yeontan was his name I remembered now, but I had no clue how I came up with it, or if it was even me choosing the name. Perhaps he had already come with it?
It was scary to realise just how much one could forget about in a year spent on drugs. My phone vibrated, but I ignored it. If people inquired where I was, what was I supposed to tell them? Wan explicitly advised that I was not supposed to confront my past—in the eyes of my therapist I wasn't ready yet—and initially, I had agreed with him.
I kinda still did, but my urge to discover what happened to my dog triumphed over every other emotion right now. Whatever happened, I needed to know and I needed closure. And who knew? Maybe the dog was still alive? One could always hope, right?
I moved to the windowsill and took in the dreary sight ahead of me. The flat overlooked the sorry-looking backyard of the building next door. And my heart twisted. I remembered having bought the place about a week after I started working for Mr Chip. At the time, I was ready to get my life back together and I was determined not to use drugs again—hence making do with about twenty espresso shots a day.
This place captured my interest because of the view from the bedroom. The building I was looking at was some sort of care home, and a gaggle of nursing uniforms rushed around elderly people that spend their days in wheelchairs or in front of the oversized living room telly I could see from here. There had always been something homely about it. I couldn't pinpoint what it was, but I had always been drawn to the window, watching the hustle and bustle of the place from my lonely confines.
Lonely…
I hadn't noticed at the time, but I had felt utterly lonely back then, hence the urge to get myself a dog, even though I hadn't been able to even keep an artificial cactus alive for a week.
I took a seat on the window sill and the material felt as cold as the rest of the apartment.
I had been on the track to get my life back together then. I remember having talking walks around the block with Yeontan, remember feeding him his two daily meals, and meanwhile—remembering feeding myself, too.
I even maintained a regular sleeping schedule and survived some of the nights without sleeping pills.
My new employer, I was sure, didn't know what to make of me, but instead of shrinking away from my weirdness he actually tried his best to understand me. I think even then I kinda hoped Mr Chip would become my friend one day. Although at the time I still did my best to keep a distance. I said I was getting my life on track…not that I was ready to allow people into it. I even kept my own brother at arm's length back then.
Heck, I even signed up for therapy. Almost voluntarily. Officer Joon had promised to waive a little assault charge off my records if I completed a total of twelve sessions and took on the position at the job. Apparently, this had been some sort of programme and although I technically didn't qualify for it, Mr Goody-Two-Shoes had put me on it, because he 'believed in me.'
I barked a laugh. I think I might even have succeeded if the circumstances had been different. It was a good thing he was on some sort of extended holiday right now. He would be appalled if he know what my life had come to over the last couple of months. Once again, I had let everything go to shit.
And it all started with the day ChimChim walked into the shop and announced himself as my new favouritestest colleague.
ChimChim, who had suffered head trauma during a car accident on Long Bridge on Christmas Eve a few weeks before the entire pandemic shit went down.
You didn't want to open that pandora's box, did you? Putin sounded like he was seconds away from having an orgasm.
But he was right. I didn't want my thoughts to spiral down that black hole. I wasn't ready.
"I came here for my dog!" I cried at my pillows. "Nothing else…none of this bullshit. None of it was even associated with this place."
Are you quite sure? Putin asked.
But I guess that's the thing about oppressing memories… you also forget how they were interlinked and which impulse may trigger something unexpected springing at you.
Something invisible must be pressing down hard on my chest, trying to squeeze all air out of my lungs, before my inhales even found the time to travel down there. My fingers were trembling so hard they had become blurry. Darn, I wished I had a cigarette night now. Darn, I wish I had something harder.
I shook my head. A cigarette was okay. I could smoke as much as I liked. But I wouldn't touch anything else. I was stronger than that.
My phone vibrated again inside my pocket and I closed my eyes and wrapped my fingers around the device. Although I wasn't ready to talk to anyone just now, someone was thinking of me at this very moment, and I tried my best to draw strength from this.
Sifting through the apartment on all fours, I threw bottles, needles, empty cartons and dirty socks around in a more and more frantic fashion. There must be some tobacco somewhere. I was sure of that…maybe I could sort all those empty bottles by colour while I'm at it.
Putin's voice started to laugh inside my head. Come on TaeTae, it mocked me. Admit it…admit what you have done. You can't keep those memories shoved down forever, you know…the box has already been opened… there is no more hiding and no more running away. You know that, don't you? And you also know that your friends will find out, somehow. Personally, I can't wait to see Yoongi's face when he does. Can you imagine that?
I shook my head, turning whiter than my walls. "They'll never know…no one knows…they can never find out." My heart went a hundred miles a minute. I was sure I was about to have another heart attack.
Trying to move my attention elsewhere, I blued my nose back to the window. The lights had been turned on in the care home, and I saw a career feeding some sort of dish to a man who sat slouched in his wheelchair. I could see eight other people seated around a table, some eating, others waiting for assistance or falling asleep.
But Putin's laughter got louder, ripping me away from that scene. Oh, they will know, because you will be telling them. Just look at you. The guilt is eating you up alive. One day you will break, and that day, your therapist will withdraw all of this information from you. And they will make you talk. For closure.
My knees were no longer able to support my body weight, and I crumbled into a ball on the ground, copying the slow rocking motions ChimChim made to soothe himself.
Putin was right, of course. If I remained in therapy, sooner or later, they would extract the story from me…and what then?
The mere idea of Yoongi finding out…
I still recalled the anger in his eyes, and the hate and the repulsion as he figured out that I accidentally did a hit-and-run on an old lady—although she had walked right into my lane at a seventy-mile-an-hour street. Yes, I should have stopped. Yes, I should have checked her vitals. But everyone assured me that while what I had done wasn't right, the woman would have died either way.
If he found out about this…the dude would kill me in the slowest, cruellest, and most painful way. And I would let him.
You're a coward, Putin advised.
"I'm a coward," I repeated because it was the absolute and utter truth.
You drank yourself into obligation when you found out who your co-worker was, didn't you? Putin cheered, and then you didn't even last a week before you started using again. Remember…remember how you rushed into the bar around the block, literally begging for some heroin. If Putin sounded like he was close to having an orgasm before, now he was at an all-time high. You promised you would do whatever for anyone to hand you a spoonful of the powder, remember that? Remember how low you had sunk that night, Mr Put-Together-Gucci-Outfit?
I bit my lip, trembling. The scene materialised in front of my eyes, as if I was watching on a movie screen. Seeing ChimChim at work, I realised that no training, probing, or learning would ever make his learning disability disappear, or put him back on the path of a fully independent life. It all had come back that day, every single second had etched itself back into the forefront of my mind…just like it did right now…
The unexpected snowstorm…the tears I hadn't been able to conceal, the bottle of Jack Daniel's on the passenger seat. My deep-set wish is to end it all.
Billy Holiday had been playing on my mp3, and I swear I could hear the song surrounding me, even though I hadn't put any music on. My head was spinning, taking me back to the past I had wanted to forget so desperately.
Angels have no thought
of ever returning you
Would they be angry
if I thought of joining you
The lyrics of Gloomy Sunday surrounded me, just like they had that fateful night.
I could feel the icy wind blowing around my nose, just like it did on that night, almost two years ago. The night I had wanted to end my life.
"I can't live like this," I didn't remember whom I had told—it must have been a random stranger at a random bar after a fight with the bartender on whether I should be allowed another drink.
I didn't remember what this guy's advice had been—if he had given me any—but I recalled having swayed from the establishment to the closest convenience store where no fucks were given, and I soon left with a full-sized bottle of Jack Daniels. I think it was a Jack Daniels. It may have been a cheap-arse rip-off. It hadn't mattered then and it didn't matter now. All I needed was enough liquid courage to see things through and drive my car into the untamed river.
It should have been simple, easy, and quick. My car was parked just at the edge of Long Bridge, only a handful of meters away from the section with the broken rail. All I needed was to get into the car, speed up, push through the barrier, to fucking finally leave this shitty world behind…
My stomach turned and I tried to focus my attention back on the care home, but the view had gotten incredibly blurry, and I could only blame my tears for it.
I could have sworn that the bridge was empty when I opened the bottle, swallowed down every single drop, and then turned the ignition. I had neither noted the small car nor the guy on the sidewalk.
Then everything happened so quickly… too quickly.
As if out of nowhere, the car was suddenly in my path, and before I could comprehend what was happening, we collided. In an awful twist of fate, it wasn't my car, but the other vehicle that crashed into the faulty barrier and was now slowly sliding off the bridge.
My head was throbbing and my heart was racing. My stomach felt as if it was a washing machine in spinning mode. I remembered what happened next as if the world had turned in slow motion. I could clearly recall how I had been unable to move a single bone in my body. And had just sat there opened-mouthed, holding tightly onto my steering wheel. I could barely make out the woman rushing from the still-sliding car to then frantically trying to open the back door of her doomed vehicle. I remembered the piercing pain I felt once the realisation hit that there was a child in the backseat.
A fucking child!
And it was trapped in a car that was about to slip down the bridge into the frosty and feral water twenty meters below. And I had been the one doing this. My heart had hammered like a madman, but it was the only muscle in my body that remained capable of any sort of movement.
Then, there was the guy.
I didn't remember much, other than his blond-dyed hair, his Burberry coat, and red-framed glasses. He rushed to the car, then threw open the door in one swift move and jumped inside as if without an afterthought. But while he managed to remove the kid from the car, it had been too late for him to climb back out himself.
He turned around and for what might have been a fraction of a second but felt like hours, his eyes locked with mine until the car tipped over and crushed into the water, removing him from my line of sight.
Those eyes haunted me for months to come. His gaze hadn't been judgemental, but rather as if he wanted to assure me that everything was going to be okay…or as if he had felt sorry for me…sorry for the guilt I would have to live with for the rest of my life.
I firmly wanted to hold onto the thought that the guy had been able to swim to the shore, climb out of the water, and went on with his merry life. But deep down I somehow felt that this wasn't the case.
Why had I not helped? Why had I pressed the pedal, driven off, and drunk myself silly at the very first opportunity? But not even any liqueur had been able to calm my racing mind. I had needed something harder, stronger, something that would knock me out for good.
That night had been my first ever time using heroin.
But then, almost exactly a year later, all would come crashing down on me once again. I started my shift at the shop, and I met ChimChim, and with him came the same pair of open and non-judgemental eyes.
He had approached me carrying something that looked like a rice ladle which had a price of seven thousand and five hundred won attached to it. I remember him wearing the widest smile and the wildest hair as he came running to me, swinging said ladle over his head, then introduced himself with the words, "hello my name is Jimin and what is yours? I'm working here at the shop with Mr Hobi because I'm the bestestest worker ever and I know where all the good Bangtan Bars are hidden and when you promise not to tell Mr Hobi I show you where they are."
The next thing I saw was a multitude of stars.
"Why did you just plonk my head with a rice ladle?"I asked while my heart was racing five thousand miles a minute. I expected to be yelled at and angry growl to have the police call on me. But instead, this guy started to giggle, "because TokTok people are doing this because it's funny, and now you need riceladleling Mr Hobi."
The scene at Long Bridge had come back to haunt me night after night since then.
When I came back to my senses the room was spinning and I felt dizzy. I barely made it to the bathroom before I started to vomit everything I had eaten within the last few days from my system.
The already blocked and smelly toilet had a brownish mess running down the sides of the porcelain bowl, but I didn't have it in me to give a fuck anymore.
Meanwhile, in the care home across the road all lights got turned off.
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